Just bought another 2 books that are of extreme value to me @ a small book fair at century square I happened to pass by. I bought The Essential Kitchen [$9] Foreword by Charlie Trotter & A guide to Fish [$12]. Look out for fairs like this and find educational books. As I mentioned before I do not like recipe books unless there's something I would like to eat in the book. I like to find books that explain stuffs, techniques, tips, produce/ingredients. Trust me, if you have the same interest as me, this kind of books is 100x more interesting that reading recipes. I normally spend at least 30 mins browsing through the books and I'll notice whom the book is foreword by. Whenever I see recipes, I'll just close the book. However, there's an exception. If the recipes are educational. For example: The recipe tells you when you should cook something like this and when not to or what kind of sauces are there for what kind of meat. I am very interested in sauces, you might think it's easy but to get the right taste, flavor, consistency is not that easy after all. Maybe simple sauces, but not all. So yeah, other than value books, there are also expensive books that you can buy, & I mean expensive good books. Not $64 cook book.... I think I have spent about $60-$80 getting 6 books that are so many times better than 1 $64 cookbook, if you lookout you will know which one I am referring to.
I also love to read about food cultures and cuisines. You find different species of fish, meat, shell fish, herbs, plants, mushrooms, vegetables in different countries. How they eat, what they eat, festive food, rustic home cooking in different countries, that's why it's interesting. If you have the time to read through books that you think are good, you'll definitely have a picture of the content and remember vividly the important and interesting matters. What you can do is do a reflection of what you have learnt from the books, take notes, and do a compilation of books on every topic you are interested in! After you think you have almost every information you need on a topic, you can print out and bind so that it's sort of a compilation. However, you have to type out so that you understand what you read in your own words. This way it's like a summary of a book. Well there are many other ways to get the best out of books, I just don't think I should spend that much money on books when I'll just chuck it on the shelf after finish reading it. However, if you are good at taking care of your books, you can always sell them to second hand book stores though I do not think it's worth it... It's worth it only if you buy from second hand book stores, not buy. I'll try to share more about the books that I have read in the near future, meanwhile, grab yourself one and get lost in the book!
I also love to read about food cultures and cuisines. You find different species of fish, meat, shell fish, herbs, plants, mushrooms, vegetables in different countries. How they eat, what they eat, festive food, rustic home cooking in different countries, that's why it's interesting. If you have the time to read through books that you think are good, you'll definitely have a picture of the content and remember vividly the important and interesting matters. What you can do is do a reflection of what you have learnt from the books, take notes, and do a compilation of books on every topic you are interested in! After you think you have almost every information you need on a topic, you can print out and bind so that it's sort of a compilation. However, you have to type out so that you understand what you read in your own words. This way it's like a summary of a book. Well there are many other ways to get the best out of books, I just don't think I should spend that much money on books when I'll just chuck it on the shelf after finish reading it. However, if you are good at taking care of your books, you can always sell them to second hand book stores though I do not think it's worth it... It's worth it only if you buy from second hand book stores, not buy. I'll try to share more about the books that I have read in the near future, meanwhile, grab yourself one and get lost in the book!